Apparently the Stuka siren was so terrifying that it's become a trope of any diving airplane regardless of its actual engine type.

If you're going to blur stuff out, why show it at all?

Vassili Zaitsev was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy when he and others volunteered for the infantry and landed in uniform marked with his rank insignia and naval Beret . ONE of the many mistakes in this film, so many in fact that survivors of the Red Army who fought there put their names to a letter sent to the kremlin pointing out these facts.

I find the lack of bayonets in this movie to be extremely disturbing.

0:45 The "Nazi Tide" washing down Italy is some pretty extreme historical inaccuracy there XD

First scene, only twice was the Russians forced to cross the Volga in daylight.

3:10 ok one small call out here History Hit.

No documents relating to the Battle of Stalingrad by both German or Soviet records ever noted a unit going into the city unarmed.

There were troops who arrived on the otherside of the Volga un-equipped, however were quickly issued equipment and then sent in.

The whole “one rifle between two men” may come from the fact that troops who did come equipped later into the battle were actually stripped of most of their rifles and had them replaced with sub-machine guns and other equipment that was better suited to street fighting. As such instead of it being “one man gets the rifle, one man follows the rifle” it’s more “one man gets the rifle, one man gets the submachine gun”

This is also widely documented as storm/assault troops were being formed.
- a storm/assault troop was essentially a small platoon formed around regular and veteran soldiers equipped with sub-machine guns and large numbers of grenades. Added on would be flame-throwers, AT Rifles (occasionally light AT Guns) or whatever was considered mobile and in need for that unit.
- the objective of these men were to usually blow holes in the upper or lower walls of a building, toss grenades into the breech, and run through gunning anything down that wasn’t Soviet, before proceeding to secure every floor up or down from there. Flamethrowers and grenades would be used to clear cellars, and grenades would be used to clear every room and stairway. In addition, a common tactic for multiple assault/storm groups on large building would be to attack from both upper and lower levels at the same time.

Why do I note this? Because as the battle went on and these units proved effective in this type of warfare, many reinforcing guard units would be equipped to actually form and replace these losses in these units, meaning that most guard “rifle” units actually got stripped of the majority of their rifles in favour of PPsH and PPD sub-machine guns.

5:05 also if I’m not mistaken, by this point those Stuka sirens had actually been stripped from them for this exact reason - not the fear thing but because it was so notable it actually gave away what was happening and allowed AA units to prepare for the attack and it allowed infantry and vehicles to move for cover or begin evasive manoeuvres to avoid being hit.

My grandfather was part of operation Uranus (the soviets that sieged the Germans and took the 6th army). He said when they entered people were eating rats and worse dead bodies. He was shot six times through the stomach they wrote a newspaper article about him in the Western Times after he moved to Wales.

My grandfather was a transportation officer in Stalingrad, was wounded and awarded a decoration. He rarely spoke about the war, but from my dad (and general interest, speaking Russian and Ukrainian and having a couple of degrees in history) I know a few points that made me dislike the film. Yes, crossing the river was extremely dangerous, and the Stukas were horrifying (this my grandfather did say: the sirens literally made people lose their minds. The inexperienced soldiers would try to physically dig themselves into the ground in order to hide, they wouldn't listen to any orders)- but this was exactly the reason why the crossings were conducted at night. My grandfather had to go back and forth more than a few times as he had to evacuate equipment and bring repaired equipment back in, so he knew the route pretty well. Usually the whole river would be covered in smoke: whether from the bombs and fires or from smoke screens, so that you could barely see anything while crossing. In general the film kind of lacks the smoke.

Yes, there were barrier troops, but no, machine gunners were not placed behind regular troops with orders to kill anyone who retreated, and definitely no commissars would be randomly shooting at soldiers on the boats, as they would not be their commanders and if something like that would happened they would be mobbed by the soldiers and totally lose controls. The barrier troops would usually consist of squads who would "hunt" deserters along the shore and in hideouts and would have permission to shoot anyone who would refuse to go back into fighting. Commissars would rarely use their weapons against soldiers, as they would usually be going along the positions and trenches to boost up morale. Also by October 1942 commissars were no longer commanding ranks but just advisors. Officers would threaten to shoot their own soldiers if they retreated (as far as I know my grandfather witnessed something like that), and would do so sometimes, but this would happen within the detachments themselves.

By the time the battle was being fought within the city, the civilians would not have been at the shore but would be hiding underground or in the remaining buildings, often cramped by dozens in single basements. They wouldn't leave since they wouldn't have survived in the street and would not have been allowed to the shore.

Also, Khruschchev was Stalin's representative (member of the military council) on the Stalingrad Front since July 1942, he was responsible for a lot of organizational issues and spent much time on the Soviet command posts within the city. He was one ruthless bureaucrat, but he also knew the field, and before the battle in the city, before the Soviet southern fronts collapsed in the Spring of 1942, he tried to convince Stalin to call off the disastrous attack on Kharkov, that cost the Soviets more than the whole Battle of Moscow.  

Eventually I guess I'm glad people did get to see something about the battle and it might have encouraged them to learn more, but this isn't particularly realistic. Though I'm not sure one can actually make a realistic movie about Stalingrad. My grandfather didn't really speak of it for a reason, and he wasn't on the front line constantly.

Are we not going to mention how they’re crossing the Volga in broad daylight? It’s well known that night crossings were how they got over, going by day was suicide

There are only 2 Things accurate in the Movie

1. There was a Battle between Sovjets and Germans.

2. There was a sniper named Vasiliy Zaizev...

The rifle with no Ammo is ludicrous

33:07 Ed Harris is a great actor IMO

A lot of things bother me about this movie. But two of the big ones are: Depictin Vasily Zaitcev as an illiterate farmhand. As pointed out, Zaitcev had served in the navy for years before going to Stalingrad. But one of his jobs there was to be an accountant. He was fully literate and well educated. Depicting him as a naive, bumbling simpleton does him a great disservice. My second gripe (in addition to all the stuff other commenters have pointed out) is the female sniper, Ludmilla, who loses her nerve in one scene, panics, and is killed because of her own incompetence. This character is apparently inspired by ludmila Pavlichenko. The real Pavlichenko was a top soviet sniper, with over 300vconfirmed kills. She was so feared that the Germans sent out special units to try and hunt her down. She was especially known for her steely resolve. She survived the war, went on a tour of the US, and became friends with Mrs Rooseveldt.
One thing that always bothers me about movies like this is the fact they rely on telling myths about ruthless soviet strategy to make the russian forces look crueler. And they don't have to. The soviet union did terrible things to large sections of it's population. You don't have to resort to "blocking batallions" to convince people of that. You can just be accurate.

My only complaint is that Ron Perlman never comments on the eternal nature of war.

To this day almost every movie that shows a plane go down plays the sound of the StuKa sirene because it is so characteristic. One can only imagine the effect it had on the allied troops, when even 80 years later everyone associates that sound with a diving plane.

Stalingrad was also a key railhub

Dan, my father fought through the Pacific  Theatre - a Corporal by Guadalcanal, he’d enlisted early and his war ended at Okinawa.  I’m not certain what happened to him on Saipan, but it changed him forever, and he had several landings to make after that.  I asked him how he had the courage to leave the landing boats again. He swore that a he’d be shot if he didn’t, that there was someone at the back of the boat prepared to shoot if a Marine faltered.  This aspect of the war has NEVER been discussed, but it was one of the few things about the war he would discuss, I’ve never doubted him.  I do not want to disparage his unit, or his Division, and perhaps it was my Dad’s perception.  He was a troubled man late in life, and while he wanted to be happy his past would overcome him from time to time- it was gut wrenching for him, and for us.

Mr. Dan Snow began with the Volga river crossing by Zaitsev's unit. He described it as perhaps the greatest war movie scene of all times! And he makes it worse by saying that the scene is astonishingly realistic!
First out, Vasiliy Zaitzev crossed with his unit on the NIGHT between the 21st and 22nd September, not in daylight of the 20th. There was only one daylight crossing, that of the 14th or 15th September by the 13th. Guards Rifle Division below an immense smoke screen.
Second, Vasiliy's unit, the 2nd battalion of the 1047 Rifle regt, wore the M.35 light cloth fatigue shirts, not the greatcoats as wrongly shown, and also still wore badges of the Pacific Fleet with the blue-white striped 'Telnyashka' undershirt predominantly showing. They would have had three kinds of headwear. Apart from the 'Pilotka' caps all shown to be wearing in this scene, some would still have been wearing the naval 'beskozirka' while a number would also have been issued with the SSH-40 steel helmets.
Third, after deboarding the trains, they were given two weeks training and prior to boarding the river transports they were all fully equipped and armed with perhaps less than full reglementary ammo but this was issued before not after the river crossing.
Fourth, Zaitsev's unit crossed without German artillery or Luftwaffe interventions. (ps. also by this time all Stukas would have had their Jericho Trumpets removed). When they landed they were given some night hours of rest before going into Stalingrad proper the next morning to a part of the city still strongly held by the Red Army, specifically, the Red October factory area, and not right in the middle of a  battle!
Those inaccuracies are for the Volga crossing scene only!  See:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSTTrBD8lQk  for a full list of 141 inaccuracies in this 'astonishingly realistic' movie.

Ian at “Forgotten Weapons” did a video on what they got right and wrong on the sniper rifles used in “Enemy at the Gates” a few months ago.  Very interesting by those of us that collect WWII firearms.